Dave Blask is the Commissioner for Greendale Twi-Nite Baseball. He lives in Greendale with his wife and 3 children who are currently in the 8th, 5th and 3rd grades. He has been a physical education teacher at Country Dale Elementary School in Franklin for 17 years. He loves to travel and you will find that he has some interesting things on his bucket list! To learn more about Twi-Nite visit twinitebaseball.org
Q: What inspired you or led you to become the Commissioner for Twi-Nite?
A: Being a Phys Ed teacher, you would think that I loved baseball when I was young, but I didn’t. Baseball was probably my least favorite sport growing up. When I was very young, I was good with t-ball and things like that. When I got to kid pitch, it was a big transition. I got pegged a few times. It’s normal for players to be afraid of the ball and I definitely was! I also had a coach that yelled all the time. I would much rather have been home playing video games than spending summers having balls chucked at me and being yelled at by a coach. So I didn’t play baseball and I put my efforts elsewhere. That experience really gave me empathy for listening. It makes you really understand how these kids are feeling. You see them in our lower leagues just being outstanding. Then they move up to kid pitch and you see this nervousness. Once they get that confidence, everything changes. It’s fun to see when the reservations and nervousness go away when they stand up there and bat. My kids were playing baseball here in Greendale and I coach at pretty much every sport that they’re in throughout the year. I was helping out more and more and seeing kids be successful and overcome situations that I didn’t. Then last year, the previous commissioner of Twi-Nite moved to Seattle and I said “I can give this a try”. It’s not too far from things I’ve done in the past, so I took it on. It’s been fun!
Q: What is your favorite restaurant in Greendale and what do you love there?
A: I love the Panther Pub because it’s Greendale. It’s fun to have that sense of a very local place to go eat. Also, the community aspect of Ferch’s. It’s a place where you can meet and sit on the patio and see people you know walking by and enjoy a beautiful summer evening. Those are two places we really enjoy going.
Q: How long have you lived in Greendale?
A: 14 going on 15 years. We weren’t targeting Greendale. I’m from West Allis and my wife is from Minnesota. We met in Lacrosse. I got a job in Franklin and we were looking for houses everywhere in the area. We found a house in Greendale. That was our starter home. We were going to stay there for five years and then get our permanent home, but we just enjoy our slice of the universe where we are.
Q: Who is the most interesting person you’ve met here in Greendale?
A: There’s just so many great people. I really like Mark Bender a lot. He’s just one of those very civic minded people. He’ll raise his hand to help and step up when it’s needed. Tim Seipel as well. Tim is the Scout Master for the Boys Scouts and he volunteers quite a bit through his church organization.
Q: If you could travel anywhere in the world right now, where would it be? And why?
A: We do a lot of traveling. I think my eldest son has been to 40 some states so far. We haven’t done a trip out west yet, so maybe Seattle, Washington. The cool thing we found is that wherever you go there’s great things to see. Sometimes you can just pull over and have fun experiences you might never have had.
Q: What is your favorite movie?
A: Superhero movies right now. Mainly the Marvel movies because they are so fun to watch with my kids. There’s not a whole lot of things that we can all go to together and equally enjoy. I feel like there are great life lessons buried in there and they are a lot of fun and well done. They have great overall arching themes. It’s been fun to do together.
Q: What advice would you give a crowd of people?
A: I give this advice to my students: everyone makes a difference. You don’t need to reach out and do big grand life changing things. Every small thing you do really helps other people and it can go a long way. Little things can make the difference.
Q: What is something on your bucket list?
A: This kind of shows my personal insanity. I would like to do an Iron Man someday. Another one is doing rim to rim of the Grand Canyon where you start at one side, go down, then go up to the other, spend the night, then come back. Even though the third one will never happen, it’s the 300 Club where you’re in Antarctica and you go from a sauna or a hot tub, run outside around a pole and back, naked! The 300 Club is a temperature degrees difference. For some reason, it’s the crazy things that sane people don’t want to do that are intriguing to me! Any one of those would fill a drop in my bucket.
Q: What is your favorite music?
A: My music feed will be an instrumental orchestral song first, then it’ll be hard rock right after that, so I don’t really have a firm grasp on it. One thing that I find interesting and really enjoy is teenage angst music, punk rock and things like that. Just the emotion, the passion and the fun behind it. It’s art in its own way and I love it.
Q: What current / former local business makes you the most nostalgic about Greendale?
A: Reiman Publications and the fact that Reader’s Digest was here was really cool.
Q: Choosing anyone alive and a non-relative: with whom would you love to have lunch? Why? Where in Greendale would you have lunch?
A: I find Aaron Rodgers tremendously interesting. I see him do things that are traits of a great leader, but then hear about players complaining about this and that. I’d like to meet him and measure him up, so to speak. He seems like a very private person. It would be awesome to see if during a one-on-one conversation if anything would come out, or if he would stay private. I would have lunch with him in one of the parks. We could get some food and go to Daffodil Park behind the village where it’s kind of quiet. Being in the park is just a great atmosphere to talk with somebody.
Q: What is your favorite thing or something unique about Greendale?
A: In many ways, Greendale is just a place where time stops. I’m very comfortable with my kids just going out and playing and not having to worry about them at the playground. While I’m coaching my older son’s game, my younger daughter and other son just go play somewhere. When I go gather them up, they are upset having to leave from playing that whole time. It just reminds me of being young.
Q: Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?
A: In five or 10 years, my kids would be in college. I think it’d be just time to relax, enjoy a quiet house and the silence.
Q: What is something interesting that most people don’t know about you?
A: I don’t really keep anything to myself. I feel like there aren’t many closets or secrets with me. Most people in even a brief conversation probably have a pretty good idea of what I’m about.
Q: What 3 words or phrases come to mind when you think of the word HOME?
A: Time to relax. Time to sit down. When I’m thinking home, I’m thinking to slow down and just take it easy and take a breath.
Q: If you were cast into a major motion picture and had your choice of anyone to be your co-star, who would you choose?
A: This goes along the same theme I mentioned with the superhero movies: the guy who plays Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr. Superhero movies were generally pretty terrible up until Iron Man. I see him as a core element. A lot of things started with him. I’d like to work with him and see what he is like.
Q: If you had a full time staff member that was fully paid for, who would you choose? Chef, Housekeeper, Driver, Coach, Physical Fitness Trainer, or Nanny?
A: Having a chef and not having to worry about food, ever, would be the greatest thing. Just having to show up and eat a prepared meal would be unbelievable. That would take loads of stress off of life: not having to shop for food, not having to prepare the food. It would be amazing.
